


Lavender for Luck

by noxelementalist



Category: The Rules of Magic- Alice Hoffman
Genre: Fanart, Fanmix, Gen, Introspection, M/M, Personal Growth, Recovery, Self-Discovery, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23701885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxelementalist/pseuds/noxelementalist
Summary: The first few months of after-life is never easy  (or, how Vincent Owens learned to stop worrying and love the world)
Relationships: Vincent Owens/William Grant
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2
Collections: Small Fandoms Bang Round Nine





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was surprised to see this fandom didn’t have much fic on AO3 yet! So...I guess it will have one more than it did now. Written for the Fandom Growth Exchange. Chapter openings are excerpts from the book itself. The story is set after the book ends.
> 
> Also, check out Mistress Kat’s amazing art and fanmix for this! You can find the cover art in the first chapter, and the fanmix art, track list, and download sources all listed in the last chapter.

_ _

_ Blue must be worn for protection. Moonstones were useful in connecting with the living, topaz to contact the dead. Copper, sacred to Venus, will call a man to you, and black tourmaline will eliminate jealousy. When it came to love, you must always be careful. If you dropped something belonging to the man you loved into a candle flame, then added pine needles and marigold flowers, he would arrive on your doorstep by morning, so you would do well to be certain you wanted him there.  _

The problem with faking your death, Vincent soon realized, was that it made it incredibly difficult to stay in touch with the living. Most of the time this wasn’t a problem, since Paris contained hundreds of nooks and crannies that each had a story to tell.

One day Vincent would wake up from the room he was still borrowing from Agnes to see a bright, golden ball of sunlight rolling up a baby-blue sky, unblocked by clouds as it beamed into the gleaming metal window panes of House Durant. On such a day he could stroll along the banks of the Seine, watch as first the teenage painters sat down on benches or on the grass to practice sketching, joined later by food carts and coffee carts selling sweets and drinks to keep everyone caffeinated, and were finally topped off by tourists throwing money they didn’t value to buskers and flower-sellers.

Those days felt like eternal summer and spring, like he was back in San Francisco, busking on the corner and watching couples pass by in what they had already started called the Summer of Love itself. Back before the war, the Thorazine, the flight, the death. His death.

Other days Vincent would wake up and be startlingly reminded that it was November. The clouds would roll across the sky as thick as the smoke plums that had filled the air at  _ The Jester _ back in New York. Those days a walk outside meant passing by young men and women in slowly heavier clothes in grays and blacks, the river abandoned for boutiques and museums, old places that held in the world as much as it kept it out. Vincent could visit the place where his grave was going to be at Pere-Lachaise on those days and almost every third row would have some waifish girl in wool laying a rose or a carnation on some tombstone on a lover she was probably too young to have ever loved. Probably, Vincent reminded himself, but not for certain. 

After all, he had been all of fourteen when he had had sex for the first time with a married woman, and he couldn’t have been the only one. In his case though Vincent had had to break her love to him before things had gotten out of hand, and so he doubted she’d ever come to visit him.

But the point was that no matter what the sun brought, there wasn’t much  _ point _ to the days anymore. Vincent had always loved nighttime more, of course, but walks at night at the start of winter in Paris meant being one part freezing cold and one part blinking away the glares from yellow light bulbs that felt as fake as anything else about him these days.

“My dear boy,” Agnes Durant finally said to him. “You held a glorious concert on Samhain, and your first song is being echoed from radio station to radio station the world over. What is there for you to be mourning?”

Vincent looked across the table at the woman who had been hosting him since his death had effectively ended his legal ability to sign a lease. The table was much like the rest of the Durant townhouse, like Durant herself: elegant, but studied. There were no worn-out chairs from children running and curling around them, no couches stained with spilled drinks, no rugs with burn marks or ink stains. And unlike his aunt’s kitchen, there were no signs of anyone ever coming late at night seeking spells: no spare offerings, cut flowers or vegetables. There were no grooves or faded counters anywhere, and no kitchen light left on for people to know it was open for business. 

Durant’s kitchen was clean, precise-corners, with an ivy scroll winding its way across white tiles and around white cabinetry that never, ever tinted.

It was early that Tuesday morning. Vincent had been getting ready to head out when Agnes had invited him to share breakfast with her in her kitchen, pouring out two small cups of the espresso she favored (and that was never, ever bitter enough for him) into artsy white cups Vincent privately swore she must use for her own fortune telling, settling them on the glass tabletop.

“Cause I’m wearing the suit I ought to have been buried in,” Vincent said back eventually. “Why, you offering to take me out of it?”

Agnes snorted. “You and I both know you wouldn’t appreciate my hands being the ones that undressed you, though I suppose a stop at a tailor couldn’t hurt.”

“True. It could make for a nice visit today.”

“Would it help if you tried a little magic work, of my family’s style? Nothing too fancy,” Agnes added when she saw the skeptical look on his face, “I know your old family was too…puritanical for that-”

“-Puritanical is the one thing I don’t think anyone could accuse of us-“

“-but just a little bitty charm couldn’t hurt you now, could it?”

“…I suppose…”

“Excellent,” Agnes said. “Let me get it for you.”

Vincent watched as Agnes stood up from the table and walked out of the kitchen, cutting through the living room and out of his sight towards where her bedroom was.

Vincent sipped at his espresso before putting back on the table, grimacing. He hadn’t tried any magic since he’d died- there wasn’t much reason for it, he felt. There wasn’t cash to be made, or things to buy. No family to support. And with his guitar still around he could still write a song or two against its strings, which was about as much of a thrill as Vincent could muster up these days, but he hadn’t written anything down because nobody was around to hear him. 

What was magic for anyway, when you didn’t have anything you needed to use magic to get?

“Here we are,” Agnes said, returning, drawing Vincent’s attention back. In her hand was a knit cap, a light grey-ish blue thing. It had a hem line of copper strand, and on the center flap of it rested three smooth buttons: two light blues, offsetting a single black one between them.

“Moonstone, Tourmaline, and…is that…?”

“Topaz, yes,” Agnes told him. 

“If I didn’t know any better,” Vincent told her. “I’d begin to think you were worrying about me.”

“My dear boy,” Agnes told him as she put the hat on his head, adjusting it so that the stones sat above his eyebrow. “While we wait for your young man, we all worry. Besides, it is winter soon, and then even you will have to bundle up.”

“I have thought of calling him up, you know,” Vincent told her as he patted the hat into place. “I-I do still have Will’s photo.”

“We have not yet reached the point where you must summon your lover from across the Atlantic like that, and let us hope it does not come to that.”

“Do you think it will?”

Agnes studied Vincent. “No,” she said at last. “But I do think that you must learn, now, how to live with yourself when you don’t have a secret to hide the way you have for half your life.”

Vincent didn’t respond. She was right, of course, but that didn’t make it any easier to do.


	2. Chapter 2

_ The most basic and reliable love potion was made from anise, rosemary, honey, and cloves boiled for nine hours on the back burner of the old stove. It had always cost $9.99 and was therefore called Love Potion Number Nine, which worked best on the ninth hour of the ninth day of the ninth month. _

December had brought with it that gift so many dream of: snow. A  _ lot _ of snow.

Vincent had never been particularly fond of the stuff. A lifetime in New York had meant snow didn’t carry the feeling that he had heard in the Christmas songs bundling around, of white blankets that kept lovers indoors by fire, that meant peaceful nights and snowmen and banquets with fires and roasted chestnuts. Snow meant grey, drizzle stuff, covered in soot from boots, trampled by union workers and homeless bums and wanderers who just wanted to not have frosted faces and head-colds while you just wanted to get indoors because, honestly, a late afternoon food run just wasn’t worth it. Vincent had been content to hang out at  _ The Jester’s _ on those nights, or even take an extra shift as a waiter, instead of walking the back alleys in search for fun things and even more enjoyable people.

So it had come as something of a surprise to find that Paris, at least the part where he and Durant were, actually was as picturesque as the postcards depicting it. Here the snow actually did blanket the ground in clean rows, disturbed only by the steps of tourists crossing it to look at the Seine with its cracking ice flows. And even though it was still cold out at night, the view did make it almost pleasant to walk around and see couples curling around café tables, the buskers dressed in wool coats and lengthy red scarfs strumming gently in the background, their cases full of coins. 

Vincent tugged on his wool cap, the stones at the center feeling cool but not bitterly so against the tips of his dark woolen gloves. Agnes’ gift had proven to be very warm and even fashionable, although no one really looked that closely at him as he passed. While Vincent wasn’t so fond of the idea of the magic in it trying to protect his mind the way his sister had once slipped clove and blackthorn to protect his body into his pocket, he had grown fond of the weight of it on his head. The hat was a reminder of all the things he could do, even if he wasn’t doing much of anything right now.

Maybe, Vincent thought to himself, he would spring back to life in the New Year when William came back. They hadn’t had much time together at Vincent’s own funeral, or after it, before he’d gone back to the United States to tie off the loose ends of his life there, but the time they were together had warmed Vincent in a way that precious little else had- that, and the wedding dresses his sisters had worn. An Owens being married to death was a strangely fitting take, though he had no doubt that Franny and Jet had had words about the choice. 

He wished he had been able to tell them he had approved of the dark humor of it.

“Monsieur! Excuse me, monsieur!” 

The high-pitched voice caught Vincent’s attention. He looked around, only just tilting his head down right as he felt a slight tug on the left corner of his woolen coat. The tug had come from a young girl, dressed in a woolen coat of her own, though it was red and not grey like his, and was topped with an equally matching red hat that just barely managed to cover the majority of the blonde tresses Vincent could see were trying to sneak past the hat’s brim. The whole thing made the girl, whose face Vincent quickly saw was fair-skinned and light eyed, look like a miniature version of the models who could be seen on billboards in other parts of town. But this was Paris, Vincent reasoned, so that may not have been surprising.

“Yes?” he asked, catching himself just in time to prevent himself from seeming to be staring awkwardly at the girl.

“Pardonnez-moi monsieur,” the girl said. “Could you help me find the Café du Stella? I am looking for my sister, and she is a waitress there.”

“Of course,” Vincent said. “It’s just in the next block. Would you like me to walk you there?”

“Yes please,” the girl said, offering her hand to Vincent. “Merci.”

“De rien,” Vincent said as he gently took her hand, and for the brief moment that they walked towards the café Vincent found himself thinking of Regina. They were around the same age, although April would’ve never have allowed their daughter to walk up to strange men and ask them to escort her anywhere. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what type of girl she would grow up to be.

He would never know, of course, now that he was dead, but he owed her at least a record player. And maybe some cookies.

“You are a very brave little girl, aren’t you?” he said as the two of them arrived outside the café. 

The girl smiled. “I—”

“Clara!” a voice cried out. Vincent looked up, stepping away from Clara just in time for a harried teenager with messy brown hair to pull Clara into a tight hug, French pouring from her faster than Vincent could translate it. 

“It’s alright Marie,” Clara said to her sister. “Maman told me to come and stay with you until Papa comes home.”

“She almost couldn’t find the café, and just asked me for directions,” Vincent explained. “I apologize if I’ve caused any alarm, but I thought it wiser to help her than let her wander.”

Marie sighed. “Thank you, monsieur, for looking after my sister,” she told him. “Please, come in. I may not have much, but at least let me make you something to drink, for your trouble.”

“I—”

“Oh, do!” Clara asked him.

“I- okay,” Vincent said, following them into the café. 

The space was similar to so many others he had passed by in his months now of residing in Paris. There were red lanterns with small yellow candles sitting on the tables and hanging on corner posts. There were counters with metal chairs that reflected the light in a dull way that Vincent knew was supposed to be atmospheric and romantic, but only seemed to make the burnished yellow tables seem more orange than they actually were. There was even a chalkboard with the specials written on it in white chalk, and an open selection of bottles clearly visible behind the café counter.

The only identifying feature between it and so many others in town, as far as Vincent could tell, was the designs of stars scattered around the ceiling that was clearly a nod to the café’s name, but it wasn’t much to go on.

“Now, what can I prepare for you?” Marie asked as they arrived at the bar, Clara hopping onto a barstool next to Vincent’s own. 

“I’m not sure,” Vincent admitted. “It’s…been a while since I’ve actually been inside a café.”

“I can order for you, if you like,” Clara told him.

“Please do,” Vincent told her, hoping that Marie didn’t find it suspicious that he didn’t have a pre-ready drink order to say. He had always favored bars a lot more than cafes. In his old life, anyway.

“Marie,” Clara said, sounding as if she was trying to be grown-up. “The gentleman will have a Fleur de Miel.”

“What is that?” Vincent asked as Marie began to brew.

Marie smiled at him. “It is a sweet drink, monsieur, made from rosemary, honey, and clove,” she told him. “It’s very popular to pair with desserts, like cookies.”

“It tastes delicious,” Clara said.

“Then I’m glad you ordered it for me,” Vincent said. “I like sweet things.”

“Then you will like this,” Marie said. “The number of lovers who order this drink is very high just for that reason.” 

Vincent could believe it, though a quick glance at a clock hidden on the counter behind Marie confirmed that it was not quite yet nine o’clock. Between that and it being free to him, he felt he’d be safe in the bubble of a small Parisian café. 

“Do you have a lover?” Clara asked.

“Clara!”

Vincent laughed. “I do,” he told the little girl, “but my lover is New York right now, while I am here.”

“To be separated by an ocean is such a tragedy.”

“Only when I don’t have such good company as yourself.”

“Here is your Fleur de Miel,” Marie said, offering him a pale yellow drink in a red glass. 

“Merci, Marie,” Vincent said, beginning to sip it.

“Don’t forget the cookies Marie!”

“I would never!” Marie told her sister just as she was putting a plate in the space on the counter between Vincent and Clara. The plate was also red, and held on white cookies that were cut in the shape of hearts with slightly purple dots visible in them.

“What is that?” Vincent asked as Clara grabbed a cookie to begin eating.

“Oh, it’s lavender,” Marie told him. “For good fortune in love.”

“He has a lover Marie, how much more fortune could he need?”

“We all need fortune in love,” Vincent teased Clara. 

“Yes we do,” Marie said. “Or have you successfully managed to get Jean Louis’ attention Clara?”

“I don’t want to get his attention,” Clara said hurriedly.

“That is not what you said last week.”

“Marie!”

Vincent chuckled to himself, taking a bit of a cookie as he began to listen to Clara and Marie talk with each other. He knew very well just how lucky love could be if you found it. After all, his own life would’ve been very different indeed if he hadn’t met William. Very, very, different.

For starters, Vincent probably would have died for real in a back alley in New York a year early, and only his sisters would have mourned him. Thanks to William, he only fake died in Paris with plenty of mourners at his funeral, a number one song still on the radio, and got free food when he helped people. 

Definitely a step up.


	3. Chapter 3

_ Star tulip to understand dreams, bee balm for a restful sleep, black mustard seed to repel nightmares, remedies that used essential oils of almond or apricot or myrrh from thorn trees in the desert. Two eggs, which must never be eaten, set under a bed to clean a tainted atmosphere. Vinegar as a cleansing bath. Garlic, salt, and rosemary, the ancient spell to cast away evil. _

Vincent bolted awake. 

Christmas Eve, 1970. In other rooms, in other cities, war is being fought while young men lie on their beds, wondering if tomorrow it will be their turn to die. Lovers are walking out of theaters where they caught a showing of  _ Love Story _ , whispering how they’d stay with each other through cancer and worse just the way Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw had. Children, half-asleep and in the process of being tucked in, are asking their parents to look, one more time, just to make sure that the right amount of sweets had been left out for the strange fellow who brought the presents. The parents, who had kept trying to hurry children to bed with the promise of those presents being there in the morning, are trying to decide how close to midnight they can get things in place and still manage to find time to sleep. 

None of this is true for Vincent. In Vincent’s bedroom it is dark, the curtains drawn, with no sign of it being a holiday on any counter. In late evening the shadows making their way through the night shrinks the room around him until it feels almost like the one a much younger Vincent had grown up with, in a townhouse long lost. The grey clouds outside filling the spaces left visible behind closed shutters, and the metal frame of the bed shimmered inky, a faded backwash for a black cage. 

In his mind, all Vincent could see was the look on an orderly’s face as he had tried to dose Vincent once more, keep him quiet and closed off in a small, white-padded room for his own good, murmuring how Thorazine wasn’t all that bad and, really, wouldn’t he like to forget, it would be so much easier.

Vincent had, in those days, been very, very good at lying. Lying to others, to himself. Frannie herself had called him a Master of Denial, and she would know. She had never lost her sight the way he had spelled himself to forget.

Sadly, it seemed he wasn’t so good at denial anymore. 

But then again, Vincent Owens was dead.

Sighing an ill-contented sigh Vincent got out of bed, shuffling quietly to the bathroom that adjoined his bedroom, barely noticing his hand flicking out to push the door open. There he felt around, eventually feeling in his hand a small bottle that, in the daylight, he knew would look like a regular bottle of bath salts, ceramic with a lightly glazed image of the maker’s brand on it. Carefully Vincent pulled the cork top from it and, leaning over, smelled it.

The scent was bitter, and sharp. Vinegar aged with garlic, mustard, and rosemary, it was probably closer to what most people used as a salad dressing. But the powdery herbs combined together was strong enough that the scent of them even for just a second cleared Vincent’s sinuses and brought about a kind of wakefulness to him. It was enough to have Vincent stand up more neatly and let him more consciously turn on the bathroom light. Strong enough that, after a few seconds of adjusting to the sudden light, Vincent could look at himself in the mirror without squinting blearily at himself.

The man who looked back was, Vincent felt, still fairly good looking. Tall, with dark eyes and black hair. Traces of a late autumn tan still spread over a muscular body, though one that showed some signs of having been less so in the recent past, with stretch marks from where it had once again expanded with the weight of flesh that had been wasted away. His pajamas hung on the curves of hip bones perhaps more prominent than they had been a year ago, but not dangerously so. 

Vincent tried a smile, and was rewarded with a look on his face of a man who, if you passed him on the street, wouldn’t have immediately drawn your attention, but who you would happily spend the better part of an hour in a bar listening to under a stage light without feeling he wasn’t supposed to be there. It was most apparent in his eyes, Vincent thought, the way they seemed to light and then latch on to whatever he glanced out, holding on as if it was precious, like it would go if Vincent tried to make them shift away too fast.

Once, many years ago, before her dying, Vincent’s aunt had said his love was addicting. Looking at himself in the mirror now, Vincent wondered how much he had been addicted to himself, that such a short time would turn him into a guy who wasn’t magnetic or enthralling at all, but just another Vietnam War draft dodger in a place well used to expats for a hundred years.

It was almost two months since his death, and William was going to be arriving in the New Year. William, who had laughed and kissed and grasped Vincent like-like nothing and no one Vincent had felt before. William’s lips on his had unlocked Vincent with the practiced ease of a locksmith turning a tumbler. It had been dreamlike, the feeling of falling into William’s arms and William’s bed, hearing his name with laughter and huffs, feeling his pulse race as he did familiarly dark deeds in an unfamiliar home. 

That week, still, was the happiest week of Vincent’s life. And thinking of it now, on Christmas Eve, on the edge of a nightmare and exhaustion, was enough to make Vincent sniff at the bottle once more before turning off the light and crawling back into his own bed. Try to count sheep, only to give up after the flock hit 144. Wonder and hope he could fall asleep fast enough for Christmas Day to come, instead of being lodged in Christmas night forever. Then try to sing himself to sleep, mumbling snatches of old lullabies he had heard fall from other people’s mouths to other people’s children. Songs about blackbirds and mockingbirds, about diamond rings and cradles and other small things only innocent children would find worthwhile to listen to. Singing turned out to work much better, and after a few false starts, Vincent felt himself slip blissfully back to sleep.

This time he dreamed of William, of his carefree smile. Of his touches, his laughter, the way they had swum together when they’d gone to see William’s parents. Vincent would’ve chosen to sleep longer if he could have just to be there, there around the memory of William.

But instead the sunlight beginning to stream through the slats in the window shutters meant that a beam of light fell directly across Vincent’s eyes, forcing him to wake up, regretful at not having a moment longer.

It was Christmas Day, Vincent reminded himself. Birth of light, of peace and hope and goodwill to everyone, including those who didn’t deserve any goodwill at all. He couldn’t stay and dream forever. There were presents to exchange, carols to sing, and appearances to keep up. Agnes was inviting friends over for a party, and even though none of them would really be paying him any mind (Agnes’ spell of forgetful privacy was strong enough for that, even now), he knew Agnes would never let him forget it if he glared or strutted around the party like a jilted lover. Especially as he hadn’t been jilted. 

In fact, he had even been able to invite two guests of his own, and they definitely deserved to have Vincent’s attention.

So Vincent once more got out of bed. This time he didn’t bother with the light, merely smelled the bottle once more before brushing his teeth. This was followed by a brief shower of hot water in a bathroom that was only lit in the background by the slowly brightening daylight, Vincent soaping his body with a bar of soap of such a dark hue that he suspected his aunt might’ve made and mailed it herself as a present to Agnes many years ago. Then a toweling off, a half-hearted brush through the closet, and finally a dressing in dark jeans Vincent knew he made look fashionable and a light grey, long-sleeve sweater that had been placed in the closet by who knows who, way back when.

It was polished, and poised, the armor one wore to events wear somebody was likely to judge based on appearances.

And it would have to do.


	4. Chapter 4

_ Black pepper for aching muscles, linden root and yarrow for high blood pressure, feverfew for migraines, ginger for motion sickness, water-cress to ease labored breathing, vervain to quiet the pangs of unrequited love. _

“Are you sure you’ve slept well my dear?”

Vincent rolled his eyes. “Agnes,” Vincent protested for what already felt like the twenty-fourth time, “if I hadn’t, no amount of asking now is going to fix that.”

“I just want to be sure that you remain upright for the party my dear boy,” Agnes replied, nodding absently to a guest as she passed by. As hostess she had dressed up in a very red, floor length dress. “It is an empire-waist maxi dress, made of flowing holly-red chiffon,” Agnes had told Vincent when she’d come back from her room dressed in the gown. “As you are now a Frenchman, you should know the name of it.”

Vincent hadn’t been so sure that he did need to know the name of the style, but even he could tell that the color was striking against the brown paneling of the hallway. If Vincent didn’t know better, he would’ve suspected Agnes had chosen the color specifically to draw attention of a most scandalous nature to herself. As if the grand hostess of an old magical family, in her own country house, in a town outside of Paris that she had not-so-quietly moved into merely the week after Thanksgiving right in time for the Christmas season to begin, would have needed the mere help of being fashionable to appear lovely and enchanting.

“After all, doorman duty is not so terrible,” Agnes was telling Vincent, “but it does require one to be…personable. Not glowering like that Lurch fellow you know.”

“I am personable,” he told her. “Incredibly so. Everyone who’s come by has remarked on how handsome and polite a young man I am.”

“They’d better,” Agnes sniffed. “I won’t have rude things about those I invited into my life and my home be said in my own house.”

“But aren’t you neglecting your guests?” Vincent pointed out. “Surely the great Agnes Durant wouldn’t be so remiss as to avoid her own party.”

“I see what you are doing, and it is unbecoming of you,” Agnes told him. “Still, I shall leave you to the door. Just remember that we will be having dinner in the dining room in an hour, and I count on you to help me to begin setting the places in about half that.”

“Of course Mademoiselle Durant.”

Agnes sighed. “Was it merely yesterday that you called me Madame? How fast the time passes. Still, it is kind of you to flatter a woman old enough to be your mother.”

“Perhaps being a man kind enough to tell the truth about a woman old enough to be his new mother will be part of the new life I’ll be living in the New Year.”

“If it is, then you and William will be welcome in more than just my house, to be sure,” Agnes replied before walking away.

Vincent felt a soft smile twitch across his face. Maybe it was the dosage of coffee he’d had this morning, or maybe it was the gift of the thick, green, woolen sweater Agnes had gifted him which he now wore after she had insisted he wear it because she had grown tired of seeing him in neutral colors. It may even have just been the sound of the party happening in the parlor rooms behind him, a sound filled with the laughter of small children and the small talk of laughing adults, but it felt…somewhat good to imagine how his life would become in the new year. When it would be easier to imagine the past year was, in fact,  _ past, _ and that who he had been as Vincent Owens needn’t be who he was now.

When William, who had come for just so short a while for his funeral, would return once again from the States with everything he’d need for their life together as expats in Yvelines, France. A life that would hopefully turn out to be a better one than the one he’d left behind. 

Just then there was a knock on the door.

“I really hope this is the right place,” Vincent could hear being muttered from the other side of the door as he went to open it.

“Bonjour Marie,” Vincent said, pulling the door back to see the two girls standing on the other side of it. “Bonjour Clara.”

“Bonjour Monsieur Grant!” Clara said as she came in, giving him a brief hug that crushed the light pink folds of her party dress before running inside the house.

“Clara! One day, my sister will learn to say more than hello when invited to a party,” Marie said sheepishly, stepping inside.

“I’m sure it’ll come when she’s older,” Vincent told her as he took first Clara’s coat, which Marie carried in her hands, and then Marie’s, revealing the teenager dressed in a light red and white striped dress that Vincent had seen being sold in one of the neighborhood shops as a popular outfit for the holidays. “My own sisters were never much fond of small talk themselves when we were younger, and they turned out to have more manners than their brother did.”

“I hope Clara will be the same,” Marie told him. “Thank you for inviting us, by the way.”

“No, please,” Vincent said, shaking his head. “Believe it or not, you and Clara are among the few friends I have here in France. I was happy you could come.”

“We almost couldn’t,” Marie admitted as she moved past him to stand at his right side, out of the doorway. “My mother was a little concerned about being invited by a strange man out to the country, until Clara pointed out the invitation came from Madame Durant, and she would doubtlessly protect our virtue. Though she was still a little annoyed to hear that Madame Durant would not accept a present greater than our attendance. It is not done to arrive at a party without some gift for your host.”

“Agn- er, Madame Durant- wasn’t even willing to accept a present from me, so I suppose we must all be without hostess favors,” Vincent huffed. “And she’d protect your virtue all right, but you have nothing to fear from me, I promise you that.”

“I know,” Marie said. “At least I suspected, I mean- may I ask what is, possibly, a rude question?”

Vincent blinked. “On Christmas day?” he asked her. “By all means.”

“Will we be meeting your boyfriend today? I don’t mean to make assumptions,” she said hurriedly after a moment when Vincent had opted to stare at her instead of giving her an answer, “but…well, I do work in a café, monsieur, and you are the only one man who has not yet tried to- to leer or pinch at me. Even the  _ Americans _ do that. And so I thought—”

“No! No, um, my…boyfriend isn’t able to join us today,” Vincent said, stammering.

“Oh.”

“He’s wrapping up some loose ends in New York City, and—”

“Oh, he’s American then!”

“We both are,” Vincent admitted. “I left, on account of—”

“The war being fought I imagine,” Marie said. “Never fear monsieur, we Parisians are most kind to…new citizens, such as yourself.”

Vincent sighed with relief. “It’s…rough, getting used to being able to say it, you know,” Vincent admitted.

“I’ve heard you Americans are not so open,” Marie admitted.

“Although apparently open enough to relentlessly try to make a pass at you.”

“Well, I’m sure they learn it from all those French movies they claim to have seen.”

“I’m sure,” Vincent said. “But- is Paris more open about such things?”

“About the war? Of course. We have sheltered many seeking to escape. But about such love affairs?” Marie sighed. “Truthfully, ever since they passed that blasted law on indecency when I was a little girl, we are more open with our talk than our actions when it comes to that particular matter of the heart.”

“I know of laws like that,” Vincent told her. “I was at Stonewall that night.”

“Ah. Well. Of course,” Marie said, “if my girlfriend and I had access to such a place as this, well, we may not have to be quite so secretive.”

Vincent laughed. “Yes, I can imagine,” he said. After a moment, he added, “You know, you are welcome to actually join the party inside. I have to greet guests a little while longer before Madame Durant will have me help serve dinner.”

“Just what is dinner that it requires a strong man such as yourself to help serve it?”

“Many rounds,” Vincent said, “but I believe the main dishes are chicken and ham, with cider to drink.”

“You believe?”

“I was admittedly more involved in cooking the desserts,” Vincent hurriedly added as Marie laughed. “Those will be spiced gingerbread cookies and a lemon custard.”

Vincent didn’t mention that there were other spices and herbs involved than ginger and lemon, like verbena and black pepper. Or that Agnes, seeing him do that, had added watercress and yarrow as garnishes onto the main meal itself. Or that the two of them hadn’t spoken about what it would mean to Agnes’ guests, who were not exactly unknowing, to see a Christmas dish that aimed to heal all manner of hurts presented as if it was a regular holiday feast.

“It’s very rich,” Vincent said aloud instead. “But it should taste well.”

“It should,” Marie replied, and for a brief moment there was silence. 

“You know,” Marie added. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Madame Durant. Would you be so kind to introduce her to me?”

“Of course,” Vincent said relieved, knowing even as he politely offered her his arm that this was Marie’s way of trying to cover her nerves, the same way he once had sheltered in her café earlier that month to avoid thinking about all the things he couldn’t have. “It would be an honor.”

Vincent walked with her, down the wooden paneled hall, into the main room of Agnes’ country house itself. The room had been designed to show off the surrounding countryside, Agnes had told Vincent, and it did so now to great effect. While the guests themselves sat in the wooden room with its thick rugs, low ceilings, and fireplace with a wreath-decorated mantel, each person was treated to a view of the snowy fields of Yvelines that surrounded the house, with a hint of the forest, its bare trees wearing a layer of snow, off in the distance. That is, if they as guests chose to sit of course: even from where they stood at the entry of the room Vincent could see that Clara had already managed to charm a pair of children who had come earlier with their mother, the three of them dancing quietly off in the corner. Meanwhile clusters of adults in festive shades of red and green and gold stood by bookshelves and doorways to carry on conversations Vincent had no doubt were as interesting as they were.

“It’s lovely,” Marie murmured. “I feel like I am in a fairytale.”

“Thank you my dear,” a voice said besides them. “It is good to hear the house appreciated so by one who is newly come to it.”

“Marie, this is Agnes Durant,” Vincent said, knowing that his voice contained a hint of laughter at Agnes appearing so quietly and suddenly besides them. “Agnes, this is Marie.”

“Thank you for inviting my sister and I, Madame,” Marie said shyly.

“It was a pleasure,” Agnes said. “Anyone who is a friend of this young man is a friend of mine. You know, his mother and I go back many years, before he was even born?”

“Really?”

“Oh yes,” Agnes told her. “In fact—”

“I think I’ll go see to the dinner,” Vincent said hurriedly.

“Yes, do,” Agnes told him, “and leave us more important women alone.”

“Most men would be afraid of leaving two women together,” Vincent heard Marie reply as he began to walk away, squeezing Marie’s hand one last time before going. 

“Yes,” he heard Agnes tell her. “But then, that boy has faced far worse than two women who cared about him gossiping.”

And that was truer than Vincent cared to admit, which made it a great relief to enter the kitchen and see there was, in fact, a great deal of food and drink still left to throw his mind into pouring and placing, something that he promptly threw his mind into.


	5. Chapter 5

_ They now had the recipe for fever tea, composed of cinnamon, bayberry, ginger, thyme, and marjoram, and for frustration tea, a combination of chamomile, hyssop, raspberry leaf, and rosemary _

_ “Faut-il nous quitter sans espoir _

_ Sans espoir de retour _

_ Faut-il nous quitter sans espoir _

_ De nous revoir un jour?...” _

Vincent winced as he heard yet another group of drunken revelers attempt to sing as he crossed the town square.

The square was, in the style of many old French towns Vincent had come to know: grey cobblestone tiles spread out across a modestly sized block. The cement grouting around it cracking idly, as if it knew that it was unlikely that anybody was going to fill the space with something besides the dirt and sand that had gathered around its edges. There was in the center a stone monument in the shape of an obelisk, with a bronze plaque firmly adhered to its center. The words on the plaque had long since faded dully away past the point of much reading, but a passerby could still make out the shape of large boughs of olive branches wrapping around its top. That the town had allowed fading meant it was likely to have been made as a memorial for some long ago fought battle that had cost the town far more than monument’s makers likely felt worth the continual remembrance of, and that was a mood Vincent knew he understood far better, perhaps, than many.

Sitting in front of the monument was Agnes. She was wearing a thick woolen coat and the pillbox style hat that had been made so popular earlier in the decade by the still newly-married Jacqueline Onassis, both in matching shades of black and grey.

_ “Ce n’est qu’un au revoir, mes frères, _

_ Ce n’est qu’un au revoir! _

_ Oui, nous nous reverrons, mes frères, _

_ Ce n’est qu’un au revoir…” _

“You would think that after all these years,” Agnes said as he came closer, “that they would think of something more original than ‘we aren’t saying good-bye this year.’ Or at least, a tad more aspirational.”

Vincent shrugged. “Maybe they figured it was worth repeating given how things are in the world today.”

Agnes chuckled, before looking more carefully at Vincent. “You,” she said firmly, “appear to have a cold.”

“I don’t get colds,” Vincent immediately protested, only to ruin the effect by sniffling.

“I told you France was not New York,” Agnes said, putting an arm around him as she shuffled them towards the corner of the square where her car- a red Simca, one that had left Vincent feeling incredibly sorry for the farmer Agnes had gotten it from when he first saw it- had been parked neatly in a side alley. “And yet, did you listen? No. You insisted on walking around at all hours of the night through Paris with little more than a jacket. You cannot expect your body to fight off every ache and chill.”

“I thought the hat did the fighting,” Vincent said, tugging on the stones at the center of the hat that he had worn so often in the past couple of months. 

“That hat does not control the weather, or I assure you, I would be an even wealthier witch than I am,” Agnes said primly. “Now, into the car you go.”

Vincent huffed and got in the car, watching as Agnes went around to sit in the driver seat. He had intended to get his own car, eventually, but he had discovered that the weeks leading into Christmas and Saint-Sylvestre (as the French apparently called New Year’s) was a time where absolutely nothing that didn’t have to get done was ever done. That included registering to get an updated driver's license, so he could have some kind of an identification so that he could find work and therefore, one day, be able to justify purchasing a car of his own.

Even as he shut the door though he couldn’t help noticing the song working its way through the last cracks before it closed fully. The revelers weren’t really singing Auld Lang Syne, Vincent knew, but it went to the same rhythm, which was unfortunate as the last thing he wanted to think about on New Year’s Eve was all the people who he knew had had to forget about him just so he could live.

“So, how shall we spend our evening?” Agnes asked after a while. 

“Spend?”

“It does not do to spend Saint-Sylvestre doing absolutely nothing, even if there are no clubs or street parties like your Ball Drop. And certainly you do not want to mark the year staring off into corners like a drunk man in a cheap bar.”

“My sisters used to joke that one day we’d celebrate with margaritas at the stroke of midnight,” Vincent told her after a moment. “I’d play the guitar, and we’d dance around, and just have a pagan good time.”

“It sounds like it would be a lovely way for three youngsters to wind up wasting a good deal of bad alcohol,” Agnes replied, gently turning the wheel to move the Simca around a rough curve in the road. “I always preferred to start this evening with tea myself.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” Agnes continued. “A light mint tea, to close the year with remembrance. And then, slowly, move to stronger drinks, with heavier food to help serve as a base for them of course.”

“My aunt had many brews of tea,” Vincent said, sniffling absentmindedly. “I think I still remember the ones for fever and frustration.”

“Let me guess: cinnamon, bayberry, ginger, thyme, and marjoram, all blended and warmed together for the fever tea. Then- let’s see now- chamomile, hyssop, raspberry leaf, and rosemary, combined together to soothe away the tension of frustration.”

“Ye-yes,” Vincent said, turning to look at her in surprise. “How did you-”

“I remember one summer, many, many years ago,” Agnes began. “The war- the second World War, they called it, though it was only our parents who could remember the first- had begun, and my family had taken shelter in a small town in America with an old family of magic users.”

“Mine.”

“Yours. And I, like so many a young girl, found myself wondering how things could ever be better in such a strange time. It was immensely frustrating to have left France, you know, right as I could have begun going to the best of parties and meeting the kind of innocent lover that we women as young girls pine after. Between that move, and the work I decided to do at the hospital to help out now that all the male doctors had gone, I found myself having to brew many, many teas, including those.”

Vincent was silent as he listened to Agnes speak. Outside the car the countryside passed in the relative darkness, marked only by the headlights of the Simca tracing over hills and the start of longer driveways that led to houses whose lights Vincent could barely see. It was soothing, and even though his head pounded with what Vincent was beginning to suspect was, in fact, the start of a cold that he in no way deserved to have, Vincent found for the first time in a long time he felt...at peace thinking of the family that was no longer his, and how things used to be.

“You know,” he told Agnes, “I think you’re right. Tonight we should start with the mint tea before moving on to a nice champagne or something.”

“Really?” Agnes asked him.

“Yes,” Vincent repeated. “I mean, I’m not going to be an Owens by any stretch of the imagination very soon, and I suppose it would be nice to adopt a new tradition for a new life. Besides,” he added, “I’ve- I’ve been thinking.”

“A dangerous occupation.”

Vincent grinned. “Yes, well, I’ve been thinking, I should- I should have a new name. You know, to go with my new life. And, if it’s alright, I was thinking that part of that new name should be Durant. I mean, it only seems that it would be the right thing to do,” he went on when Agnes didn’t reply. “You’ve housed me, clothed me. Fed me. Saved me from a- a highly destructive life that would’ve ended even worse. Forced me to get out of my own head, explore places. Make new friends, even if one of them is young enough to be my daughter. And even though I’m taking William’s last name, it would be an honor to have a new name of mine too.”

“You are old enough to be my son,” Agnes said to him slowly, as if she was trying to wrap her mind around the idea. “That is, if I had ever been so fortunate as to have a child of my own.”

Vincent sneezed. “So how about it?” he asked, wiping his nose with the end of his scarf. “Care to have a son?”

Agnes’ grip tightened on the wheel. “That is not a decision to be made while I am driving.”

“When would you like to make it then?”

“Let’s discuss it over tea tonight,” Agnes told him, looking fixedly at the road. “Although not merely mint tea. I think I will also brew for you fortitude tea tonight.”

“Oh?”

“No Durant is going to be entering the New Year with a cold.”

Vincent found himself smiling. “Thank you Agnes.”

Agnes hummed. “You may thank me after you drink the tea,” she told him. “I warn you, it is not as pleasant as Owens’ courage tea.”


	6. Chapter 6

_ Henna with limes, roses, tea, and eucalyptus and let it simmer overnight, for henna’s hue reflects the strength of love of a woman for a man, the thicker and deeper the color, the more genuine the love. Amulets that carried apple seed were made in the evenings as they sat out in the yard, meant to bring the wearer love, for apples signify the heart. For those who wished to gain willpower, and say no to a lover who would bring only heartbreak, there was a cure of rosemary and lavender oil. Bathe in it, and when you next saw the one you had once cherished, you would send him packing. _

“You are getting impatient, young Durant.”

“I said it before, I’ll say it again. I am  _ not  _ a kitchen witch,” Vincent repeated. “Brewing potions was never my thing.”

“Oh, and I suppose you want to use a figurine drenched in honey? A lock of hair? Maybe a doll or a comb?”

“Don’t tempt me. I was good at using those.”

“Yes, and for all the wrong purposes,” Agnes retorted, rolling her eyes at him. The two of them had been working in the kitchen since shortly after a late brunch on a batch of henna ink. Agnes had planned to give it to a painter that was working on a series of paintings for a showing on Valentine’s, and thus was needed far sooner than that.

Vincent had initially protested. It was New Year’s Day, and he knew the holiday superstitions as well as anyone else who had been forced to self-teach himself magic knew. Say rabbit, rabbit twice when you wake up to ensure good luck will race through your house. Grab a small stack of money, ideally coins, at the very instant you walked out of your bedroom door in the morning to bring plenty of money into your bank account. Do not wash a single dish or piece of clothing, or take out the laundry, lest you accidentally wash away the good news and good people from your life that had hidden in the dust and marks left on them. Kiss your loved ones to strengthen your relationship with them and ensure you will be on good terms in the upcoming year. Eat ham and black-eyed peas for prosperity, and do just a little to work to ensure you will be employed lawfully and gainfully, but not too much unless you wanted the whole year to wind up being a year of toil or strife. You could even use eggs to predict the future, tracing their drops in water, or maybe count the dings of a slowly sinking wedding ring to know about your future children.

None of this meant doing a lover’s work of henna brewing and apple carvings. Henna brewing and apple amulet carving was not even meant to be day work. They were both  _ evening  _ work, things to start and set out by the light of the moon, and to test the strength of your love on such a day invited challenges and conflicts for the rest of the year. 

Agnes had not been swayed. “We are French, my dear,” she had said to him as she tied up her hair with a light scarf patterned with petals. “If we were to avoid everything that could possibly try a lover, Paris itself would never have been built. Besides, if it is a new life you wish to start, how better to start it than with a working so far from what you’ve done, and for someone else, and in the name of spreading love?”

Vincent had sighed with resignation and merely rose from the kitchen table, placing a dirty cup now empty of coffee in the sink before moving to open the cabinet to where he knew Agnes had stored the powdered lime. He knew better than to argue the point.

“It’s just a bit of stirring and simmering,” Agnes was saying, adding a spoonful of rose petals. “We’ll be done with the mixing of it soon, and then we can lay back and let the heat of the kitchen rise and take care of the rest.” 

“It’s just strange, is all,” Vincent said, making sure to pour in a hint of eucalyptus oil once Agnes had moved away from the stovetop. “Don’t you need an object for the passion?”

“Did you ever need to know the names of all those eyes you turn your way?”

“That isn’t my love or my passion,” Vincent pointed out. “That is theirs.”

Agnes sighed. “You are so tedious this morning,” she said. “Perhaps that second glass of sherry had been a bad idea.”

“I don’t mean to be tedious, honestly.”

“Oh sure,” Agnes replied, walking around him to pick up the wooden spoon she had been using to stir from where it rested on the counter. “Next you’ll tell me some sad story about having your heart broken, and so you’re incapable of love.”

“No, nothing of that,” Vincent told her. “At least…”

“...yes?”

“Let me tell you a tale of a man I used to know by the name of Owens.”

“Was he a good man?”

“He might’ve been,” Vincent told her as Agnes began to stir. “He came from a good family, with a doctor for a father and a mother who knew how to keep appearances. They used to say he was a charmer, a looker, the kind of man who could pull snips of songs out of your head while you were dreaming, who’d pull quarters out of children’s ears and blow trick fire for the watchers.”

“Owens must’ve been quite a performer.”

“Oh he was. Owens was so good at he could make it seem like he could read your mind and make lights flicker by thinking at them. And in bed…”

“You knew him in bed?” Agnes asked, raising an eyebrow at Vincent.

Vincent shrugged. “A lot of people knew his reputation in bed,” he told her, slouching down at the counter to watch as Agnes stir in henna flowers, making the fluid in the pot swirl in inky eddies around them. “And it was a good one. Very good. One to envy.”

“Mhmm.”

“So good, in fact, that it was, ah, rumored that he had to break someone’s love to him once because she had gotten addicted to him.”

“Of course she had.”

“You don’t believe me?” Vincent asked Agnes.

“Oh, I do my dear,” Agnes replied, moving to put the spoon back on the counter. “It merely continues to amaze me that it seems only men brag and boast about being so good. I have yet to hear a woman do so.”

“Come to Greenwich in New York, and you’ll hear plenty of women who’ll prove you wrong.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she told him. “But you were saying?”

“I asked him one time about it,” Vincent began again. “About love. Turns out Owens wasn’t much of a believer in it. It’s just a tale told to idiots, he told me.”

“By an idiot.”

“Excuse me?”

“The line,” Agnes said, moving to sit down at last at the kitchen table, “would be that it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

“Oh,” Vincent said, joining her.

“It is from Macbeth. His wife, the Lady Macbeth, the witch-”

“-witch literally or figuratively?”

“-well, Shakespeare would have you believe the latter, but truthfully the former,” Agnes continued, “has just died, perhaps by suicide. Macbeth is mourning when he says that line, and then the trees of Birnam Wood come to march.”

“Mourning or being honest?”

Agnes blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Macbeth sacrificed his entire life and family for her, out of love or something like it, for fame and glory, and it’s about to end in blood,” Vincent said. 

“That is what comes from listening to the blackest of magic involved to summon hallucinations.”

“Owens thought they weren’t hallucinations, but images of Macbeth in the mirror.”

“The mirror...yes, yes, I do remember the Owens family did mirror work,” Agnes said thoughtfully. “I could see how that might draw him to that particular reading of that horror.”

“The point though- the point of the story- is that Owens...never really felt love, with anyone,” Vincent concluded. “Just lust, and desperation, and loneliness.”

“I too knew such a man once,” Agnes said slowly. “He was an artist. They used to say he was a master of denial, and loneliness, and lies, always twisting to hide the truth of who he was and what he felt out of fear of whom it may catch. Of course, the twisting only made the pull of him stronger,” Agnes told Vincent, “until finally, they say, he died. He had woken one morning and killed himself by drowning in the river, hoping that the Seine would cleanse him as the goddess of it once cleansed the Romans and Gauls.”

“That’s...definitely very artistic.”

“Yes, something Victor Hugo once wrote I believe. And what of your Owens?” 

Vincent blinked. “My Owens?”

“Did he ever find love?”

“He did, and for one blissful summer they were together. Then came the draft, and he almost died swallowing more than a few tiny pills in a white room, before dying of a heart attack.”

Agnes winced. “A truly modern tragedy.”

“Yes.”

For a moment the pair was quiet, the only sound in the kitchen the sound of the slowly simmering pot of henna dye on the stove. It struck Vincent then the pair of them, dressed in soft flannel pajamas and old shirts and- in Agnes’ case- the scarf tucking her hair back, made them both look like two characters that could’ve fit in one of the Edward Albee plays he had seen advertised in Paris.

“We should consider ourselves so lucky that we do not live such tragic lives as Durants,” Agnes said.

Vincent smirked. “I’ve never been a fan of lavender and rosemary as a bath soap myself,” he replied. “Although I suppose there is a great deal less to worry about when you aren’t hidden in shadows and back alleys.”

“Though it can be less fun,” Agnes teased, making Vincent laugh. “I tell you, the adventures I had as a younger woman in Montmartre…”

“I dunno,” Vincent told her, “William and I have had some very excellent adventures of our own in the daylight.”

“I’m sure that you have dear. I’m sure that you have.” 


	7. Chapter 7

_ Do not drink milk after a thunderstorm, for it will certainly be sour. Always leave out seed for the birds when the first snow falls. Wash your hair with rosemary. Drink lavender tea when you cannot sleep. Know that the only remedy for love is to love more. _

It was on a February morning that a man appeared on the doorstep of Agnes Durant. From the nearby town of Yvelines the sound of church bells were distantly pealing, signaling to the townsfolk who had been crossing its square that it was noon.

The man was dressed in the suit of a professor, although it was in the more formal American style than in the casual one that had begun to grow popular in the French universities. In one hand he held a small bouquet of lavender flowers that he had been able to buy miraculously on his way from the train station, for the weather had been just warm enough for the greenhouse gardens to trick Nature into letting a few bloom far out of their season. In the other he held a worn book of what, to one of an uninformed and ignorant education, would have seemed to be a book of rubbish recipes claiming to be from a spell book written by one Ms. Owens, full of old superstitions about flowers and herbs and dairy products.

At his feet sat a black German Shepherd, who had not appreciated flying across the ocean in a crate, only slightly better appreciated being allowed to sit as a guide dog on a train, and now patiently sat instead of running into the countryside, all to see someone very dear to him on the other side of the door.

The young man knocked. Agnes Durant opened it and, seeing who it was, called back inside the house for her son, Victor Durant, to come outside.

Victor came to the door and, seeing who it was, rushed outside to kiss the man, gasping his name as the dog began to jump with glee.

William Grant had come at last.

The End


	8. Fanart and Fanmix for "Lavender For Luck" by Mistress Kat

Cover Art:

Fanmix Cover:

Fanmix Track Listing

Fanmix can be downloaded either [at YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT0p7D4Vxet_NpPD0XvJBV0xdIpvifkau%20) or [at Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3SeJv0ObT37WRW3oSbl2cm?si=vkRkvRbbRIyDAvAClPUfrg).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Lavender for Luck (Art) & the only remedy for love (is to love more) (Mix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23688505) by [MistressKat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressKat/pseuds/MistressKat)


End file.
